Cameras

Cameras technically came into being around the 11th century, when an Iraqi scientist discovered the camera obscura. Basically, just a box with a pinhole, it would create an upside-down image of an object in front of it.

18th century camera obscura used trace an object far away. Obscura is Latin for dark, as it had to be used under low lighting conditions.

In 1826, Nicéphore Niépce, put a pewter plate lined with bitumen behind a camera obscura, and developed the first ever photograph. After years of trial and error, in 1888, George Eastman developed a film that could be used in a portable camera, thereby bringing photography to the masses, creating a hobby that was much less expensive. At that time, people would bring, or mail the cameras back to the factory to have the film developed.

The first photograph ever taken, “View from the window at Le Gras”

In 1948, Edwin Land invented a chemical process that would instantly develop the film held in a cartridge behind the camera. Called the Land Camera Model 95, it was a hit amongst amateur photographers.

**This is a camera lucida (meaning “light”, as it was able to be used in lighted conditions), used by artists to help draw objects. This one was made in England around 1840.**

**Premo A camera, 1893. Manufactured by the the Rochester Optical Company, later to become the Eastman Kodak Co. in 1903**

C.P. Stirns vest camera, circa 1886. Designed to be worn under one’s vest, it allowed people to take pictures of random people they met. Although they manufactured some 15,000 of these, they are quite rare to find today.

**Rochester Optical Poco, dated 1896. This was a dry film camera and came with directions how to make your own developing chemicals**.

**Unusually long German camera, c. early 1900s.**

**This ”spy” camera, as also seen on our curiosties page, designed to look like a pocket watch, was manufactured in England around 1906.**

Here is an “acquisition aid” camera used on the Apollo space missions in the 1960’s. It was purchased from the estate of Charles Ball, an eccentric NASA scientist and inventor who collected over 6000 items of “space junk” over his long tenure at NASA.

This coronet midget camera stands in at about 3 inches, and weighs about 2 1/2 ounces. It was manufactured in England in 1935, and billed itself as the worlds smallest camera at the time. It is made of bakelite and is categorized as a subminiature camera.

**Polaroid Land Camera Model 95, 1948. The Model 95 was the first camera ever to use instant film.**

**This spy camera, made in Japan, was designed to look like a cigarette lighter! Made in 1956.**

**Here is a Russian KGB spy camera designed to look like an ordinary pack of cigarettes! c. 1950**

**Unusual scarce Radio-camera, Britain, c. 1960**

**This Steky “spy” camera, built in 1955, was a cold war staple, and had a telephoto lens and used 16mm** **film. It was about and inch tall and 2 1/2 inches wide.**

**Spectroscope camera, brass and mahogany, c.1880**

**Fingerprint camera used during crime scene investigations, circa 1955.**

**Aerial camera used to take pictures from a plane**.

**WWII era torpedo camera, used to spot torpedos from an aircraft**

Realist 3D camera and viewer, that allowed people to take and make their own 3D slides. Popular from 1947 through 1970.